Who Are Google’s Main Competitors?

Google (GOOG) is a technology company whose mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., the company has grown to become one of the most innovative companies in the modern technological age.

Since Google was broken out into Google, Inc. and the parent company Alphabet, Inc., the company has only continued to grow, touching sectors from its traditional search engine to advertising, science, entertainment, and autonomous vehicles, just to name a few. Due to its cross-cutting products and services, Google’s competitors vary.

Google’s Competitors: Search

In the online search arena, Google is nearly a monopoly with 87.75% of the online search volume and market as of June 2021. This leaves little room for competitors trying to outsmart and outperform the search engine, which generates its revenue through ads. The second largest search engine and the main competitor to Google is Bing with 5.56% followed by Yahoo! with 2.71%.

Other companies considered to be Google’s main competitors include technology giant Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, as well as Internet pioneer and media company AOL. It should be noted that in other countries such as China, Google is banned from conducting business; there, the number one search engine is Baidu, which, as of June 2021, controls more than 80% of the country’s market share.

Google’s Competitors: Entertainment

After acquiring YouTube back in 2006 for $1.65 billion, Google has ramped up the entertainment and video content platform. In 2019, YouTube brought in $15.15 billion in advertising revenue. That was a 36% year-over-year increase, making the acquisition well worth the money.

Since the demand for online streaming platforms and services has grown in the past few years, YouTube’s main competitors include Netflix, Hulu, Vimeo, Walt Disney Company, and other content streaming platforms. However, depending on how you classify it, YouTube also competes for eyeballs with social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Google’s Competitors: Autonomous Vehicles

Waymo, otherwise known as Google’s autonomous vehicle project, has been one of the most mysterious yet buzzed-about subdivisions of Google. Empowered by the idea of creating a world that could be transformed by self-driving cars, Waymo has reiterated itself since 2009 to launch a safer vehicle that can reduce traffic accidents and reshape urban transportation. In this competitive and highly-secretive space, Google competitors include Uber’s own self-driving project, Zoox, Nissan, Tesla, Renault, and others.

Google’s Competitors: Technology Industry At-Large

In the other revenues segment, Google competes with database pioneer and technology services giant Oracle, software company PTC, semiconductor giant Intel, independent software company CA Technologies, software company Compuware, American semiconductor company EMC, software company Red Hat, and network optimizer F5 Networks.

Other Google competitors in this segment include IP protocol device manufacturer Cisco Systems, multinational technology company Hewlett-Packard, computer security company Symantec, risk management and bond rating company Moody’s Investor Services, American technology icon IBM, cloud computing and customer relationship company Salesforce, and Microsoft, among others.